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Diatribe and Plutarchs Practical Ethics
Diatribe and Plutarchs Practical Ethics
Summer 2015
Recommended Citation
Burns, Aaron. "Diatribe and Plutarch's practical ethics." PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) thesis, University of Iowa, 2015.
http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/1832.
by
Aaron Burns
August 2015
AARON BURNS
2015
CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL
____________________________
PH.D. THESIS
_________________
Aaron Burns
____________________________________________
Craig A. Gibson
____________________________________________
Paul Dilley
____________________________________________
Glenn Storey
____________________________________________
Carrie E. Swanson
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
and appreciation for ancient philosophy, and for guiding me through the
dissertation process.
Gibson, Paul Dilley, Glenn Story, and Carrie Swanson, for their willingness to be
on the committee and their helpful suggestions. I would also like to thank Craig
Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Kristin for many hours of editing
and proofreading this dissertation, and for her patience and love during the long
ii
ABSTRACT
received relatively little attention: the link between his metaphysics and ethics,
and Plutarchs use of diatribe, a rhetorical style primarily associated with Stoics
and Cynics, as a means of targeting a wider audience of educated elite for his
philosophy. I argue that Plutarchs De virtute morali links his ethics with his
uses diatribe, in which the author adopts a conversational tone and addresses the
adherence among educated elites during the time when Plutarch began to write, I
argue that Plutarch adopts rhetoric associated with the Stoics as a means of
iii
intellectuals required the patronage of the educated elite for their personal
iv
PUBLIC ABSTRACT
Plutarch explains the problems associated with the vice in the title and proposes
of and cures for these vicious behaviors are based on his belief (following Plato
and Aristotle) that the human soul has a rational part and irrational part that
work in opposition to each other. Vicious behavior arises when the rational part
loses control of the irrational. Plutarchs regimens are designed to put the
rational part of the soul back in control to restore virtue. I argue that Plutarch
gives an abstract account of the process of putting reason in control of the soul in
his treatise On Moral Virtue, and that the five practical ethical works show that
abstract process in specific cases. I argue that On Moral Virtue links Plutarchs
practical and theoretical philosophy: the ordering of ones soul under the control
of reason mirrors the creator gods ordering of the cosmos. I also argue that On
Moral Virtue and the five practical ethical works are linked by Plutarchs use of
the diatribe, a rhetorical style associated with the Cynic and Stoic philosophical
v
schools and use it to argue for Platonic ethics. I argue he does this to promote
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 1
PRACTICAL ETHICS .................................................................................................................... 3
DIATRIBE..................................................................................................................................... 8
BION OF BORYTHENES ............................................................................................................. 11
MUSONIUS RUFUS .................................................................................................................... 12
EPICTETUS................................................................................................................................. 13
SENECA ..................................................................................................................................... 14
DION OF PRUSA ........................................................................................................................ 14
DIATRIBE AND PLUTARCH....................................................................................................... 15
De garrulitate ....................................................................................................................... 17
De curiositate........................................................................................................................ 19
De vitando aere alieno .......................................................................................................... 19
Diatribe with virtue as a mean ............................................................................................. 20
De vitioso pudore .................................................................................................................. 20
De superstitione .................................................................................................................... 21
2 DE VIRTUTE MORALI .................................................................................................... 23
3 DE GARRULITATE .......................................................................................................... 43
4 DE CURIOSITATE ............................................................................................................. 56
5 DE VITANDO AERE ALIENO ....................................................................................... 74
6 DE VITIOSO PUDORE .................................................................................................... 85
7 DE SUPERSTITIONE ....................................................................................................... 94
8 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................ 105
9 WORKS CITED ................................................................................................................ 112
vii
1
1 INTRODUCTION
English-speaking world for most of the twentieth century. This is partially due to
the wide variety of Plutarchs subjects, which has often proved an obstacle to
Plutarch chose to write. Also, several excellent studies that explore connections
and unifying themes between Plutarchs works have appeared within the last
This dissertation will analyze Plutarch and his use of the diatribe style in his
popular/practical ethical works. I will argue that Plutarch made use of the
philosophy that were the best-known kind of philosophical work in the first and
early-second century CE, in order to create the first popular philosophical works
in the Platonic tradition. I will present a brief survey of the arguments about the
diatribe style and use of the term diatribe, as well as a brief survey of the
diatribe before Plutarch. Subsequent parts will present analysis of six works of
Plutarch that show him using the diatribe style (which up to Plutarchs time had
been used exclusively by Cynics and Stoics) to argue for his own practical ethics.
2
This analysis will establish that Plutarchs ethics, despite employing a style
generally associated with the Stoics/Cynics, are more in line with the Platonic
tradition.
This analysis will use several recent works on Plutarchs ethics, many of
which appear in Roskam and van der Stockts Virtues for the People: Aspects of
tradition, and especially van Hoofs 2010 book Plutarchs Practical Ethics, in which
the author argues that certain ethical works of Plutarch are written as a guide to
good behavior for a cultural elite who are well-educated, but lack rigorous
diatribe only briefly, and downplays its significance for Plutarch. I will argue
that Plutarchs use of the diatribe demonstrates his awareness of the kind of
ethical works his educated audience would be accustomed to, and that it fits well
into the model of practical ethics described by van Hoof, van der Stockt, and
the Stoics to advocate an ethics based in Platonism will provide insight into what
makes Plutarchs ethics distinct from those of the Stoics. As Russell (1973a)
observes, Plutarchs ethics were, in practice, not obviously different from those of
the Stoics. However, despite the outward similarity of the practice, the theory
3
and reasoning behind Plutarchs ethics is in sharp contrast to Stoic ethics (8788).
Plutarch himself is keenly aware of this distinction, and wrote several polemics
practical ethics, to understand the theory behind the practice, and how it differs
from that of the Stoics. Making this distinction was clearly a concern of Plutarch.
lacking in the recent treatments of his ethics. I will show that the six works
Practical Ethics
the Hellenistic period focused most of their attention on ethics and on answering
the question What is happiness or well-being and how does a man achieve it?
wider social group than Plato or Aristotle had influenced (6). Stoics (as well as
works that could serve as advice for those unable to study more technical
writing, or as starting points for those who wanted to begin pursuing philosophy
philosophy in the Hellenistic period and Roman Empire. Platos Academy and
the Peripatetic Lyceum were active during this period, but produced very little
output that was read outside of the schools themselves.1 The term popular
has raised more questions than it has answered, and recent studies of these
works have called the usefulness of the term into question. As Geert Roskam and
Luc van der Stockt observe in their introduction to their volume Virtues for the
People: Aspects of Plutarchan Ethics, Zieglers criteria for choosing certain works to
Ziegler, on a later page (703), also adds five additional works, which he calls
philosophy for the common person. As Lieve van Hoof notes in her introduction
1The most important Academic philosophers of this period were the Skeptics Arcesilaus and
Carneades, who did not write any works (though their opinions are preserved by Cicero). After
Theophrastus, the output of the Lyceum drops off dramatically, both in quality and quantity
(CHCL 622625).
5
philosophy, and the works that Zeigler has so labeled are frequently treated as
such.2 Chris Pelling, in his chapter in Virtues for the People titled What is popular
attempted to popularize his ethics by writing to, for, and about non-
philosophers, i.e. the pepaideumenoi, who Pelling writes became a staple of Greek
thought in the Second Sophistic (56). Thus, Plutarch may be writing a popular
2 Van Hoof (2010) 45. As van Hoof observes, the tendency shown in general treatments of
Plutarchs Moralia is to reserve in-depth analysis for the more technical treatises and refer to the
popular philosophical works only in support of a point. Babut (1969a) and Dillon (1996) 184
230 are the best examples of this. She also calls attention to the faint praise given to the popular
ethical works in Sorabjis introduction to Greek and Roman Philosophy 100 BC200 AD (2007), in
which he writes that Plutarch (though this may be a personal opinion) should be on the shelves
of every household that has growing children, because he discusses so many issues that need
discussion and do not get it (12), noting the denigrating effect in his ostensibly positive
statement both in the parenthetical interjection and in his recommendation of Plutarchs ethics,
which are obviously written for adults, for children (56).
3 Pellings chapter focuses mostly on the Lives, rather than the Moralia, but his augments about
several important issues about the works that have been labeled as popular
philosophy. First is the idea that Plutarch consciously styles himself as a writer
examples of second-rate philosophy misses the point of these works entirely. For
that reason, it makes sense to consider a more useful name for these works. Such
Franoise Frazier, when Pelling presented the paper that would become his
Virtues for the People: Plutarch and Contemporaries on Desirable Ethics, Delphi,
Greece, September 2004 (41 n. 1). Frazier proposed that practical ethics would
make a more useful term than popular philosophy. Van Hoofs subsequent
adoption of the term for her book seems to have cemented practical ethics as
not only presents himself as a versatile writer on philosophical topics, but also
does so in a way that presents his literary garland (to use Pellings metaphor) as
the most attractive to a pepaideumenos. Given the arguments of Pelling (see above)
and van Hoof4 that the cultural elite were the target audience of Plutarchs
works, Plutarchs attention to his audience is clear. Plutarch makes his allegiance
philosophical traditions, both in his ability to borrow from them and his
Platonism was far from the most influential of the great philosophical schools in
the period before Plutarch; the Stoics were responsible for most of the influential
began writing also had been influenced by Stoicism, to the point that some were
adopting Stoic doctrine into Platonism. Plutarch was opposed to many Stoic
doctrines and their influence on Platonism.5 So, while Plutarch does devote
works to attacking Epicurean doctrine, his most frequent target in his polemical
works is the Stoics. However, Plutarch also seems to have been aware of the
4 As van Hoof notes, Plutarch assumes that his audience is wealthy and well-educated, both
through references to material wealth, such as slaves, horses, and luxury goods, and also in
references to participation in political and intellectual activities reserved for the cultural elite (20).
The majority of Plutarchs addressees in the twenty-one popular philosophical/practical ethical
works are known to have held political offices, and van Hoof provides a list of them (21).
5 See Chapter 2 for details on the Stoic doctines, the Platonists who adopted them, and Plutarchs
freely from them, occasionally in content, but more frequently in the form and
Diatribe
The diatribe tradition, and even the term diatribe, have been a source of
scholarly controversy since the late nineteenth century. Given the lack of
making strong claims about the term. There is some general agreement, however.
role of Cynics in the creation of the diatribe style, which accounts for the
sermonizing quality and the focus on ethics. Russell (1973a) defines the
Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period 330 B.C.A.D. 400, follows Russell, and
also identifies some formal features: (a) short dialogues between the speaker and
9
subject matter; (d) vocatives and rhetorical questions; (e) simple syntax; (f) use of
irony and sarcasm, maxims, and anecdotes; and (g) use of rhetorical figures
The earliest works that have been called diatribes come from the
Stoic/Cynic tradition. From its beginning, the Stoic school had a popular
Academy, the Lyceum, and Epicurus garden were situated on the outskirts of
Athens, Zeno of Citium (331261 BCE), the reputed founder of Stoicism, engaged
in discourse right in the heart of Athens, at the Painted Porch (Stoa poikile), which
gives its name to the school.6 According to Diogenes Laertius (VII. 4), Zeno was
educated by Crates the Theban (fl. 326 BCE), a Cynic philosopher, who had a
habit of entering peoples homes and admonishing whoever was inside. As with
all of the early Stoics and Cynics, no works by Zeno or Crates survive, but Teles
(fl. 235 BCE), another Cynic, records some of the sayings of Zeno, Crates, and
many philosophical schools.7 Bion was known for his wit, use of rhetoric, and
serio-comic style of writing.8 It is with Bion that the diatribe style, with all the
reference to Bion and works of his called diatribes in his life of Aristippus:
edition of the fragments of Bion, argues that this use of is late, and that
Bion would likely have not referred to his own works by that name.9 The modern
Horace, in which, citing Usener, he calls the diatribe a genus.11 Over the next
the formal features of diatribe. The most important of these were Henricus
mixtum perfecit. (LXIX). Kindstrand does not object to this statement, but says that it in no
ways justifies the far-reaching conclusions drawn by later scholars, who assumed that the word
stood for a special literary form with a special style (97). Stowers attributes the idea of
the genre to Wilamowitzs 1881 essay Der kynische Prediger Teles. Wilamowitz does not use
the term diatribe, however (78).
11 Heinze 67.
11
and Rudolf Bultmanns dissertation on Paul (1910). Despite the number of works
diatribe as a literary genre is a modern invention and not something that the
ancients would recognize as genre, and that the term diatribe is misleading
Jocelyn, while the term diatribe might be unfortunate and a modern coinage, it
does refer to a distinct style (but not necessarily a genre) that can be identified,
Bion of Borythenes
As stated in the introduction, Bion is the first philosopher who is said to have
given diatribes. Bions diatribes likely were actual lectures delivered both to
probably written notes from these lectures, but these have been lost. Fragments
Bion employs to grab and then hold the attention of the audience, and the
to appeal to a wider audience. Bions most frequent topic seems to have been
choosing a life of poverty and learning over a life of luxury. Since Bion is the
12
supposed founder of the diatribe tradition, the studies of diatribe from the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries often seek to find parallels between
later authors and Bion. Stowers observes that there was a sort of Bion mania at
this point in studies of diatribe (19). Much has also been made of Horaces
statement in Ep. ii.2.5960, carmine tu gaudes, hic delectatur iambis, / ille Bioneis
Musonius Rufus
Musonius Rufus was a Roman eques and Stoic philosopher who lived and taught
in the first century CE (c. 25c. 95) in Rome. Tacitus reports that he was exiled
twice by Nero, first in the company of the senator Rubellius Paulus from 6062
(Ann. 14.59), and then again from 6569, when Nero forced him into hard labor
(Ann. 15.71). After Neros death, he returned to Rome and served as a peace
envoy from the emperor Vitellius to Vespasian in 69 (His. III.81), and successfully
prosecuted P. Egnatius Celer in 70 for his false accusations of treason against the
proconsul Barea Soranus (His. IV.40). Musonius was exiled again in the mid-70s
by Vespasian, and while in exile he met Pliny the Younger (Plin. Ep. III.11). Like
Bion he did not write any works, but his student Lucius recorded several of his
discourses (J. T. Dillon vi). The subject of all of these discourses is the necessity of
Lutz characterizes Musonius as the Roman Socrates because he did not write
Musonius discourses in the form recorded by Lucius lack the liveliness of Bions
diatribes, and presence of the imagined interlocutor is less obvious.13 For this
reason, as well as the didactic and quiet tone, Schenkeveld questions whether
Musonius discourses really fit in the diatribe tradition, but allows for the
possibility that Lucius editing has elided the vividness of the oral discourse
(236). However, Geytenbeek and Schmeller (125157) both make strong cases
Epictetus
Epictetus (c. 55 CEc. 135 CE), while a slave, was allowed to attend lectures by
student Flavius Arrianus recorded and edited some of his lectures, which he
argumentative and didactic than Bions, but he continues the use of rhetorical
13Schenkeveld believes that imagined interlocutor is entirely absent (236), but Schmeller argues
that there is evidence for it (151154).
14
Seneca
Seneca is the lone Latin author participating significantly in the diatribe tradition
in the time before Plutarch. Unlike the other Stoics to this point, Seneca did write
philosophical prose. His Naturales Quaestiones and Epistulae morales are the works
that show elements of the diatribe tradition. Like the other authors of diatribes,
he rails against vice using short, loosely constructed sentences, and also makes
liberal use of neologisms. Quintilian famously censured his style as corrupta (Inst.
10:1:129). Schenkeveld describes his style as vivid and direct (238), and he
Dion of Prusa
Dion, also known as Dio Chrysostom (c. 40 CEc. 110 CE), was trained as an
orator but took up philosophy after being taught by Musonius Rufus. Dions
works were divided into sophistic, political, and moral orations, of which
15
we have some of the last group. Some of these contain stories about the Cynic
diatribes, since Dion, as he describes, desire[d] to lend them a more regular and
prose (244). However, Dion still maintains at times the convention of direct
address and rhetorical questions, and the Atticizing tendency in his work is
The first of the six works analyzed here, De virtute morali (De virt. mor.), is about
ethics generally, while the other five are about specific vices. In De virt. mor.,
Plutarch accounts for the role that moral (as opposed to intellectual) virtue plays
in his ethics. This account makes it clear that his ethics are fundamentally
differentiating his own views from Stoic views. The attack on Stoicism, however,
uses elements of Stoic diatribe. De virt. mor. also establishes a paradigm that the
practical ethical treatises follow. Plutarch describes how moral virtue involves
Metriopatheia does not involve eradication of desire, as the Stoic ideal of apatheia
that Plutarch attacks does. In each of the five practical ethical treatises considered
16
bringing the desires that lead to vicious behavior under the control of reason
through habituation.
obviously into the diatribe tradition: De garrulitate (De garr.), De curiositate (De
cur.), and De vitando aere alieno (De vit. ae.). These works, I believe, stay true
generally to the features associated with the diatribe tradition. Plutarch differs
uses the diatribe style, first to show his reader how the vicious behaviors he is
attacking do harm both to the reader himself and to his relationships, and second
to offer the reader a means of remedying those vicious behaviors. One may
question whether the vices (Nikolaidis calls them only foibles) that Plutarch is
superstition) rise to the level of ethical concerns. My analysis will show that, for
Plutarch, they do. Recent work on the Second Sophistic in general (Whitmarsh)
and Plutarch specifically (van Hoof; van der Stockt) have emphasized the social
component of educated life; that is, the educated man, whether a philosopher or
should). My analysis will emphasize how the vices do harm to both the person
himself and to his social relationships. It is this harm that makes these topics
rather than haranguing the audience with the general formula stop being
vicious and start being virtuous, Plutarch instead presents the audience with
the formula this is how your vices harm you and here are ways you can
overcome them.
De garrulitate
observes that
comedy (c.f. Eupolis fr. 352; Ar. Nu. 1485), and was one of Theophrastus
talkative person annoys and alienates his listeners and makes himself appear
foolish. He compares the talkative person with a drunk, saying that the talkative
person appears drunk even when sober (503E504 B). He offers numerous
talkativeness, and the advantages of reticence (504F510D). The rest of the essay
place for discussing Plutarchs use of the diatribe tradition, first because it does
contain most of the elements associated with that tradition, and second because
true for the rest of the works I discuss. It also makes sense as a starting place for
of the subsequent works on Plutarchs ethics. Analyzing this text will also be
programmatic for the rest of the texts that I examine, in that Plutarch explicitly
states that his primary purpose is not to censure talkative people, but to advise
19
them. He also emphasizes that habituation is the key to overcoming this vice,
which is the practical method he proposes in each of the texts I will analyze.
De curiositate
people do this, according to Plutarch, because they cannot bear to examine their
own lives and deal with their own shortcomings; they instead revel in others
affairs that they neglect their own, and they harm their relationships because no
one trusts them due to their desire to expose secrets. As remedy for this vicious
pursuits.
Plutarch attacks those who borrow money to acquire more goods in this
like a slave to the lender. The remedy Plutarch proposes is to enjoy the freedom
from debt rather the pleasure of acquiring things. Although the vice-as-disease
20
Plutarch nevertheless speaks of the greed that drives the borrower to borrow
more as insatiable, just like the s desire for new gossip. I also
Plutarchs works, De vit. most closely resembles the diatribes of his predecessors.
In the works I will discuss in this section, De vitioso pudore (De vit. pud.)
emphasize the harm that vice has on the self and on relationships, and speaking
of vice as disease.
De vitioso pudore
unlike the vices discussed in the previous section, arises from a good nature,
the excessively modest man agreeing to do and say things that his reason tells
21
him are wrong out of fear of those around him. The harm in this excessive
modesty is that, because the overly modest man does and says bad things
because others persuade him to, he harms his own character. When good people
censure him, it harms his relationships, which is exactly the situation he hoped to
avoid in the first place. Plutarch prescribes habitual practice of the use of ones
rational faculty, which he says will strengthen ones convictions. Greater practice
with using ones reason also makes clear whose opinions one should yield to,
helping the modest man to avoid deferring to those who are mistaken or
immoral.
De superstitione
arise from mistaken doctrine distinguishes this treatise from others that also have
harmful the way superstition is. The superstitious man believes that the gods
purposefully do harm to humans, and thus lives his life in perpetual terror,
believing that any bad thing that happens is a punishment from some god. He
engages in any ritual, rite, or sacrifice, no matter how absurd, to try to appease
22
the gods that he believes hate him. Again Plutarch, this time noting what an
in rational study as a solution. Only by understanding the gods correctly will the
2 DE VIRTUTE MORALI
it is necessary to examine Plutarch's ethics generally, and how they fit in his
on ethics, and it has a two-fold purpose and structure. First, Plutarch grounds his
(metriopatheia). He also argues against the Stoic notion of moral virtue as apatheia,
of bringing one's emotions under the control of reason, which he will apply to
remedying specific vicious behaviors in other essays. Despite arguing against the
Stoics, Plutarch borrows the diatribe style from the Stoics, using it to argue
against Stoic apatheia in De virt. mor. and to show how vices are harmful in the
when Plutarch was active; Plutarch identifies as a Platonist, and his ethics, even
statements such as: P. ist kein originaler Denker gewesen (938). Few early-
Babbit writes, [i]n philosophy, Plutarch does not go very far below the surface
(xiv). Babbit (ibid.) and Zeigler (940) also call Plutarch an eclectic, a label
in this period. Jones argues that Plutarch is both systematic and consistently a
Platonist (see esp. 913). D. A. Russells Plutarch (1973a) was the first work in
15 Plutarch begins his treatise De animae procreatione in Timeo by saying that he has frequently
made various statements about Platos opinions on the soul and that he has written about those
opinions in various works:
... (1012B). cf. Opsomer (2005)
177.
16 For a discussion of eclecticism in ancient philosophy and the negative connotation the term
"eclectic" often has in scholarship, see Dillon and Long (1988) 114 and Donini (in Dillon and
Long 1988) 1533. See also Castelnrac 2007.
25
Platonist even if he was not in all respects in agreement with the orthodoxy of
the school (63). More recent works now view Plutarch as a pivotal figure in the
development of Platonism, and, if not the most important, certainly the best
youth in the mid- to late first century CE, Stoicism was the dominant
philosophical school, but by the end of his life in the early second century,
Platonism came to overshadow every other adherence. Given his concern with
the history of Platonism and his own place in that history (see n. 26 below), a full
understanding of De. virt. mor. also requires some discussion of Platonism before
Plutarch.
In the first century BCE, there had been conflict in the Academy between
Philo of Larissa18 and his student Antiochus of Ascalon.19 Philo defended the
Antiochus argued, on the other hand, that there was a clear break between the
ancients (the first four heads of the Academy, Plato, Speusippus, Xenocrates,
and focused on the positive doctrines put forth by Plato.21 Ciceros account of the
understood by Antiochus diverged from the skeptical and aporetic nature of the
Socratic elenchus.22 Antiochus also adopted Stoic doctrines that the Academic
Skeptics were strongly opposed to. He accepted the Stoic idea of the cognitive
Stoic apatheia as the ethical ideal.23 The traditional view of Middle Platonism,24 of
philosophy of the New Academy.25 However, Jan Opsomer, in his 1998 book In
Search of the Truth: Academic Tendencies in Middle Platonism, argues against this
20 Dillon (1986) 5556; cf. Cic. Ac. 1.1118, Dillon (1988) 106, and Opsomer (1998) 38.
21 For a full account, see Glucker (1978), which is devoted primarily to conflict between Philo and
Antiochus.
22 sed utrique Platonis ubertate completi certam quondam disciplinae formulam composuerunt
et eam quidem plenam ac refertam, illam autem Socraticam dubitanter de omnibus rebus et nulla
affirmatione adhibita consuetudinem disserendi reliquerunt (but both [the Academy and the
Lyceum], furnished with the richness of Plato, formulated a certain sure rule of doctrine, one
indeed full and complete, and left behind the Socratic habit of discussing doubtfully about all
things without admitting any assertion 1.17).
23 Dillon (1996) 64 and 77. Cf. Cic. Ac. II.135.
24 Middle Platonism, as opposed to the Old and New Academies and Neo-Platonism, is usually
defined as anything in the Platonic tradition coming after Antiochus and before Plotinus.
25 Dillon, for example, says in The Middle Platonists, the sceptical tradition has no place in Middle
Platonism (43). Glucker also treats "Platonist" and "Academic" as contrasting terms (262263).
Froidfonde (1987) argues that "Plutarque n'appartenait pas l'Acadmie et qu'il est bien visible
qu'il a pratiqu les uvres de Platon et mme est revenu aux sources mmes de son matre" (230).
27
view, instead claiming the New Academic spirit continued to exert some
may safely conclude that Plutarch saw no contradiction between his adherence to
the Academy and his being a Platonist. It is indeed more than likely that he was
proud of being called a Platonist (26). Opsomer argues that this compatibility is
the aporetic element in Plato encourages a way of searching for the truth
without prejudices or a priori commitments, and this practically amounts
to a dialectical inquiry, arguing either side of a given question. But this
dialectical spirit does not deny the possibility of reaching firm
conclusions, or even the possibility of achieving secure knowledge ( 2)
Plutarch admits both the suspension of judgment as a method of inquiry, and the
possibility of acquiring true knowledge (Quaest. Plat. 1000C,27 Adv. Col. 1124B 28).
26 [A]bove all in [Plutarchs] works may be discerned a constant preoccupation with the history
of Platonic philosophy, and a concern to define his own position and his interpretations of Plato
in relation to it. Plutarch makes an honest effort to combine harmoniously Platonic with
Academic themes (15).
27 , ,
.
(So, therefore, if there is nothing capable of being grasped and known by a
man, reasonably god prevented [Socrates] from producing false and unreliable wind eggs. And
god compelled him to question others believing these sorts of things).
28
are important for his ethics because accepting the unity of the academy means
showed tendencies towards Stoic ethics, with both Antiochus and the
as the ethical ideal.31 Keeping with his general opposition to Stoicism, Plutarchs
28 ,
,
, ,
(The theory of suspension of judgment
is not a fiction nor a pursuit of empty-headed and reckless young men, as Colotes supposes, but
it is a habit and disposition of men guarding the infallible and not giving over judgment to
deceiving and uncertain perceptions and not being deceived by those who say to have trust in
obscure phenomena, since they see such distrust and uncertainty in those phenomena.)
29 Numbers 63 and 64 of the so-called Lamprias Catalogue, a list of titles attributed to Plutarch,
31 On Antiochus ethics, see Dillon (1986) 6981, esp. 7677; on Eudorus ibid. 122126; on Philo
contribution to Platonist ethics moved the school away from the Stoic influences
the Loeb Classical Library edition, points out the looseness of the reasoning, the
Plutarchs works (16, n. a, 17). The only treatment in English devoted solely to
however, in his 1969 translation and commentary, argues that De virt. mor. in fact
has a clear purpose and structure, which is two-fold: first, to ground Aristotelian
Stoics. Rather, De virt. mor. should be treated as a popularizing work, like the
to Platonists like Plutarch for ethical advice, rather than to the Stoics. De virt. mor.
32 Etheridge is concerned primarily with Plutarchs source material for De virt. mor. and gives
little analysis to the arguments in the treatise in themselves (171).
33 Babut (1969a) 143, esp. 4243.
30
also has the function, as Babut and Opsomer (2005) argue, of linking Plutarchs
Viewed in this light, the apparent two-fold structure that Etheridge notes is not a
problem.
wishes to argue against. He briefly surveys some Stoic opinions on virtue, noting
that they differ on whether there are many virtues or just one, but emphasizes
that all of the Stoics agree that a) virtue is a certain disposition of the governing
rational part, such that the soul is wholly transformed in emotional states
mistaken, according to Plutarch, in thinking that humans are two-fold only in the
sense of the division of soul and body, and that the human soul is simple and
uncompounded. Rather, as Plutarch says that Plato understood,34 the World Soul
the source of evil in the worldis still a subject of scholarly debate.36 However,
Plutarchs view that there is a pre-cosmic soul and matter and that the demiurge
ordered them is important for his understanding of individual soul and moral
the creation of the World Soul after an account of the body, the body is younger
35 Plutarchs concern with the history of Platonism, as observed by Opsomer (cf n. 24 above), and
his awareness that his view of the soul is a potentially controversial one, is evident in his opening
remarks in De an. proc., a treatise which he composed for his sons precisely because he believed
the topic to be difficult and his view controversial. He notes the contrary opinions of Xenocrates
and Crantor of Soli in 1012D, and stresses that his claims are not necessarily held by the majority
of Platonists ( 1012B). It is
important here to note, as does Opsomer (2005), that Plutarchs Unity-of-the-Academy thesis
never implied that all Platonist [sic] always agreed on all issues (177). However, no subsequent
Platonists adopted Plutarchs view. For a summary of ancient criticism of Plutarchs view, see
Opsomer 2001. Drrie (1971) argues for the existence of a Platonist orthodoxy (which he terms
Schulplatonismus), represented by the Didaskalikos and the anonymous commentary on the
Timaeus, which Plutarch positions himself against in De an. proc. Dillon (1988) more convincingly
argues against this view, denying the existence of an orthodoxy as understood by Drrie, and
asserting that Plutarch does not speakas an outsider attacking the establishment, but as the
true interpreter of Platos doctrine correcting the mistakes of predecessors (108).
36 Harold Cherniss, in his LCL edition of De an. proc. (1976) suggests that Plutarch quotes Plato
selectively and even deliberately misquotes Plato to create support for his interpretation (138
139). Dillon (1988) is more charitable, claiming that [i]t may seem to us that promoting his own
doctrines in the guise of an exegesis of the Timaeus is precisely what Plutarch himself is doing,
but that is not, plainly, how he sees it (108). Opsomer (2005) takes the most positive view of
Plutarchs interpretation, saying that he does all he can to reconcile apparently conflicting texts
so as to arrive at a consistent interpretation (178).
32
Timaeo by quoting Tim. 35ab.38 In De an. proc. 1014B Plutarch asserts first that,
while the cosmos was generated by the demiurge, the substance and matter
); he goes on to say that this state before the generation of the cosmos
disorder that existed prior to the demiurges ordering the cosmos was driven by
many places (), but that in Laws he calls disorderly and maleficent
as the disorderly force is uncontroversial, but his claim that Plato makes
37 ,
...
(34b35a). Cf. Leg. 892a and 714e.
38 The passage as quoted by Plutarch at 1012BC. There are minor differences between Plutarchs
version and the text of Tim. 35ab, which are noted by Cherniss (158161).
39 The many places Plutarch refers to are given later in 1014E and 1015A, and are found in Tim.
(47e48a, 56c, 68e69a, cf. Cherniss 188189 n. c and 189 n. d) and Plt. (272e), where Plutarch
substitutes for , a substitution that Plutarch justifies (according to Cherniss
191 n. c) by Plt. 269d (cf. De an. proc. 1026B).
33
it a principle and calls this principle a maleficent soul in Laws is.40 However,
despite being maleficent, the pre-cosmic world soul is, as Plutarch says in 1014E,
).41 Because it is soul and can partake in reason, the demiurge can make
always a recalcitrant element in the World Soul. This recalcitrance is the source
of evil and disorder in the world. Since the human soul is a part or copy of the
World Soul ( ),
and the human soul is put together according to the same principles and
442), the human soul is not simple or uniform either. For Plutarch,
this notion rules out the Stoic notion of the total transformation of the soul from
acknowledging the Platonic tripartite division of the soul into the rational, the
spirited, and the appetitive, emphasizes that the most important division in the
The rational part corresponds to the part of the World Soul that partakes in
contains both the spirited and appetitive, and corresponds to the recalcitrant part
grouped the spirited part of the soul with the appetitive, and then devotes
several examples to showing that the passionate part (i.e. the spirited and
appetitive), though lacking reason of its own, is equipped by its nature to heed
the rational part and turn towards it and yield to and be conformed to it, if it is
in contrast to the nutritive and vegetative parts, which are wholly irrational and
conception of the soul here, with the two-fold soul having an irrational part that
is itself two-fold, with one part capable of obeying reason and another that is
42...
,
. Plutarchs examples include lust disappearing when one discovers the
object of desire is a relative (442E) and becoming revolted at food one enjoys eating when it is
discovered to be unclean (442EF). Plutarch also makes analogies with musical instruments,
which, though they lack any soul of their own, can be made to make beautiful and harmonious
sounds (443A) and animals that are able to be trained to obey commands (443B).
35
generally tries to emphasize his fidelity to Plato (e.g. De an. proc. passim).
which, having been made subservient to reason, acquires this quality by habit
the words moral virtue () and habit ().44 Plutarch emphasizes that
reason does not eradicate passion, but only imposes limit and order on it; it
implants them [ethical virtues] with prudence to render the capacity of the
consider the definition of a virtue, Aristotle claims that since there are three
Aristotle, that those three things are said to exist in the case of the soul.46
46 , .
36
( ), which is vice if it is
brought about by bad habit, but virtue if by good (443D). This argument about
virtue and vice being dispositions also falls in line with Aristotles arguments in
and moral virtue, first by saying that there are two types of things that exist:
absolutely are the earth, the heavens, the stars, and the sea; things that exist in
relation to us are good and bad, desirable and undesirable, and pleasure and
pain (443E). Reason, he says, considers both types of things, but when reason is
47Cf. EN 1139a7: ,
, (Let us assume that
there are two reasons, one with which we contemplate the sorts of things whose first principles
do not permit them to be otherwise, and one with which we contemplate the sorts of things that
do.)
37
reason, however, must consider things that are material and imperfect, and
passions are the tasks of deliberative reason and the virtue of deliberative reason
moral virtue, but it is the task of practical reason to eliminate the defects and
excesses of the passions.50 Achieving this goal is, of course, achieving the mean
the mean is Plutarch invokes the musical harmony, where the of the octave
is in equal proportion to the (highest note of the octave) above and the
48 Plutarchs example (443F) is that a geometer would not deliberate about whether the internal
angles of a triangle add up to two right angles; he simply knows that to be true. Cf. EN 1112a,
where Aristotle says that no one would deliberate about the incommensurability of the diagonal
and the side of a square.
49 Plutarch here and in 443F ( ...) and 444A (
) must be thinking of EN
1140a where Aristotle, having identified art () as a rational activity, says that art and chance
are concerned with the same things ( ),
because in 1112a Aristotle lists the results of chance ( ) among the things that no
one would deliberate. It is odd that in a work where Plutarch so closely and so frequently
paraphrases Aristotle that he would associate deliberation with chance repeatedly when Aristotle
says the opposite.
50 ,
(444BC).
51 , ,
(EN 1106b1107a).
52 Helmbold puts this in modern musical terminology, suggesting that, for example, if A were the
, the D above would be the and the E below the , since both intervals would be
perfect fourths (4243 n. a). For an explanation of how Plutarch likely would have understood the
38
control (), pointing out that temperance involves the moderation and
however, is simply control: the reason subdues desire. For that reason, self-
control is not strictly a virtue, a point that Aristotle frequently asserts.53 Plutarch
compares self-control to the famous image of the charioteer from Plato (Phdr. 253
argument and seems to be included primarily for Plutarch to show off his
erudition; instead the section segues from the description of moral virtue to the
polemic against the Stoic doctrine of apatheia. Plutarch summarizes this doctrine
by saying:
relationship, see Barker, Music. in OCD4 6. Plutarch also uses this analogy in Plat. Quae. IX
(1008DE).
53 e.g. EN 1128b, 1145a1146b, 1151a, and EE 1227b, 1237a.
54 Babut suggests that this image is never far from Plutarchs mind, but that it is not totally
Plutarch wanders at leisure over the preserves of Aristotelian psychology, and censures
Plutarch for looseness ofreasoning [and] tediousness ofargumentation (16 and n. a).
39
passion is not other than reason, nor that they enter into disagreement and strife,
but that there is a change of one reason into both). In other words, the rational
faculty turns irrational when the soul is in an emotional state. He goes on to say
that
, ,
desire and anger and fear and all other such things are base opinions and
judgments, not arising in one certain part of the soul, but are inclinations and
yieldings and assents and impulses of the whole governing faculty 447A).
The arguments presented in this part of De virt. mor. are less text-based
than those in the first half of the treatise, and show more influence of diatribe.
make his arguments. Plutarchs first argument against Stoic doctrine is that when
desire and reason are in conflict in one person, the person does not alternate
between rational judgment and desire; the judgment and desire co-exist. His
example is a person in love who realizes that his love must not be expressed.
Even though the lover restrains his emotion and chooses not to express it, he
does not cease to love. And if he is overcome by passion and does express his
imprudent love, he still does not fail to recognize his error in doing so. So, rather
than alternating between rational judgment and desire, this man is in between
40
associated with diatribe. In this case, the Stoics themselves are the hypothetical
often forms contrary opinions on the same matter, but remains the same faculty.
The point in this objection is that Plutarch thinks the Stoics regard inner conflict
address to the hypothetical objectors,57 is that they are correct in the case of
purely intellectual deliberation, but that the Stoics have conflated intellectual and
deliberation, and any deliberation that involves the pain of inner conflict must
involve the conflict of, and co-existence of, passion and reason as described in
447B. Any deliberation that seems intellectual, but does cause pain, must
judgment. If the Stoic notion of the conflict of reason and passion were true, then
56 ,
; (447CD)
57 Marked by the first person plural: ,
(447D).
41
the conflicted lover from the above example ought to be able to make himself
stop loving without any pain. But this is, as Plutarch says, plainly contrary to
Chrysippus each changed their opinions about certain doctrines (Plutarch does
not say which) with no pain. However, the hypothetical interlocutor above has,
according to Plutarch, equated such a change of opinion with the rational faculty
Plutarch next argues that not only does the conflict of reason and emotion
prove that they are two distinct things, with their sources in two distinct parts of
the soul, but that the agreement of reason and emotion also proves that they are
distinct. Examples of the concord of reason and emotion include a man who has
married a woman for practical reasons, but develops a desire for her as they live
together or a student who follows a teacher because of the content of his lessons,
but develops fondness or affection for the teacher during the course of their
studies. In these cases, emotions are reinforcing good judgments, but they are
clearly distinct from those judgments (448DE). In 449A, Plutarch censures the
begin an attack on the Stoic doctrine of eupatheia, which holds that the wise man,
42
Senecas words, certain suggestions and shadows of passions, but indeed will
for the Stoics to account for the passions without having to acknowledge the
irrational parts of the soul.59 Plutarch regards it patently absurd that any person,
58 Sentiet itaque suspiciones quasdam et umbras affectuum, ipsis quidem carebit (De Ira I 16.7). Seneca
attributes the doctrine of eupatheia to Zeno of Citium. Dillon (1983) thinks that though Zeno may
have expressed the idea, it was likely Chrysippus who named eupatheia and stated it as doctrine
(509). Cf. Long 1986. Plutarch gives a more favorable characterization of this doctrine in De vit.
pud. 529D.
59
(449B).
43
3 DE GARRULITATE
talkativeness (
comedy (c.f. Eupolis fr. 352; Ar. Nu. 1485), and was one of Theophrastus
in Plutarchs ethical writings, and he continues this model in De garr. with two
In his monograph Plutarchs Schriften ber die Heilung der Seele (1971), H. G.
Ingenkamp argues that many of Plutarchs essays on ethics follow the pattern of
offensive nature of his vicious behavior (), and then offers a program of
through the use of negative examples (7). Typically, these negative examples
show, as Ingenkamp (74) and van Hoof (159) have observed, the harm ()
,
, ,
,
, :
, :
.
There are three things that are the motives of choice and three that are the
motives of avoidance; namely the noble, the expedient, and the pleasant,
and their opposites, the shameful,61 the harmful, and the painful. Now, in
respect of all these, the good man is likely to go right and the bad to go
wrong, but especially in respect of pleasure; for pleasure is common to
man with the lower animals, and also it is a concomitant of all the objects
of choice, since both the noble and the expedient appear to us pleasant
(trans. Rackham, slightly modified).
and expedient appear pleasant to us, the shameful and harmful likewise would
The term describes the damage one does to ones self though
a great deal of damage to ones self, the in De garr., identified by van Hoof
silence (208). In 502E, Plutarch expands on this idea with a quotation from
the goods found in silence are, according to Plutarch, hearing and being heard
, (Though they
desire listeners, they are unable to obtain any, but rather each person flees
of ways. First, he says that people will flee the talkative man if he approaches
colonnade), all those seated or strolling together quickly will signal breaking
, who has an (a bad mixture of speech), and thus does not allow
anyone else to get a word in, and the , whose speech is a
(a narration of untimely or long and unconsidered speech).
The main difference between the two is that while the disregards his audience in that he
dominates a conversation by talking too much, the disregards his audience by
introducing irrelevant or uninteresting topics. The lack of regard for ones audience is common to
all of Theophrastus characters with conversational problems, as it is for Plutarch. Plutarch,
47
), all fall silent, hoping to avoid providing the opportunity for him to
join their conversation. The talkative man when travelling finds no willing
listeners, only those compelled (); all seek to avoid being his tent-
provides some quips he attributes to Aristotle to show how someone with good
sense responds to a talkative man (503B). These responses show Plutarch using
that people who never check their speech and let it flow out so that their mouths
their words are not believed; and belief, according to Plutarch, is the aim of all
drunkenness, first by saying that drunkenness is like madness66, then saying that
the fault most associated with drunkenness is loose speech, which he illustrates
however, does not attempt to distinguish between a and an , and uses them
interchangeably in De garr.
66 , (For while anger,
drunkenness can make a man talkative, Plutarch then claims that the
is even worse than the talkative drunk. The drunk is only temporarily talkative
(and some even keep silent when drinking69), but the is always
talkative, and thus behaves like a drunk even when sober. For this reason,
amusing tricola:
,
, ,
.
While the drunk talks foolishly where there is wine, the talkative man
talks foolishly everywhere, in the market, in the theater, on a walk, drunk
or sober, morning or night. As a doctor, he is worse than disease, as a
very wise man to sing and compels him both to laugh and dance and he lets slip a word better
unspoken.)
68 (like the mysteries), is another Plutarchan coinage. As Beardslee notes,
Plutarch has, having already taken to remedy a foible with philosophy, elevated the stakes
further with religious language (274).
69 , (thus drinking is not censured,
if silence accompanies the drinking 504). Plutarch also illustrates this point with anecdotes
about Bias and Zeno of Citium keeping silent at drinking parties in 504A.
70 Beardslee claims that [h]is rhetoric requires him to say that talkativeness, because it is
continual, is worse than drunkenness, which is occasional (274). However, while this claim is a
rhetorically powerful statement, there is no reason to assume that Plutarch makes it for rhetorical
effect alone. It is at least possible that Plutarch claims this genuinely.
49
Plutarch then states that speech, like wine, when used in moderation, is pleasing
) there are some that are dangerous (), some that are
hateful (), and some that are ridiculous (), but all of these
,
,
.
are mocked for telling well-known stories, are hated for bearing bad news
and endanger themselves because they cannot keep secrets (504F505A).
Keeping with the diatribe feature of using anecdotes to illustrate ones points,
Anacharsis72 slept with his left hand covering his privates, but his right covering
his mouth, because words require stronger restraint to control than lust (505A).
71 The use of sub-types of isocolon, such as tricolon, and extended parallelism are more diatribe
features that Plutarch uses in this treatise.
72 Anacharsis was a powerful Scythian who traveled in search of knowledge, and visited Athens
Sulla73 was able to capture Athens because spies informed him of the citys weak
points, which they picked up from barbershop chatter. Sullas anger at Athens
came, according to Plutarch, from the mockery and banter that Athenians
directed at him from the city walls (505BC). Neros would-be assassin divulged,
in an attempt to provide comfort, the plan to kill the emperor to a prisoner about
to be led before Nero. The prisoner then divulged the plan to Nero, who was able
tyrant Demylos of Carystus75 and, having been captured, rather than risking
divulging information when tortured, bit out his own tongue and spat it at the
tyrant (505DE). Leaena the courtesan, who was the mistress of Aristogeiton,
was part of the conspiracy of Aristogeition and Harmonius against Hippias and
Hipparchus in Athens. After the failure of the conspiracy, she was tortured to
bravery, the Athenians set up a bronze statue of a lioness with no tongue at the
(Thus I think
(1126D) and De Stoicorum repugnantiis (1051D), and names the tyrant as Demylos in both.
76 As Pausanias explains, Lenaea became the target for Hippias anger after the murder of
Hipparchus. The statue was only erected after the end of Peisistratid power in Athens (1.23.12).
The story is also related by Athenaeus (596f). Cf. Thuc. 6.5459 and [Arist.] Ath. Pol. 1819.
51
that we have men as our teachers in speaking, but in keeping silence, the gods,
exercise self-control and keep secrets (506AC). Plutarch notes that although
of confidences are all of low status: specifically women, barbers, and slaves. All
examples of reticence are from philosophers or nobility. Given that the audience
is generally agreed to be the educated elite, Plutarch makes part of the the
recognition that leads to behaving like people whom Plutarch and his
audience would consider to be inferior (160161). Van Hoof goes on to point out
that Plutarch is clearly aware of the social concerns of his readers and, rather
sensitivities strategically in order to win the reader over for his own sake (163
164).
77Plutarch restates this idea in different terms in 506BC, where he tells how Pittacus, ordered by
the king of Egypt to cut out the best and worst meat from a sacrificial animal, cut out the tongue
as both, since, according to Plutarch, the tongue is the
. He tells the same story, only with Bias as the clever butcher, in De
audiendo (38B) and Conv. sept. sap. (146F). As Beardslee observes (277 n.3), in the examples of
Odysseus reason commanding his eyes, tongue, heart, and even his breath and blood (506B),
Plutarch alludes to his explanation from De virtute morali 445B of how reason ( ) must
lead the passionate element in the soul ( ) for a person to exercise self-control
().
52
. ,
No one is accustomed to avoid and reject from the soul that which does
not disgust him. And we are disgusted at our sicknesses when we
perceive by reason the harm and shame from them (510D).
ones reason to achieving the opposite of the vicious behavior: in this case,
silence and reticence. His first example comes from Plato's Protagoras (342e),
where Socrates compares the laconic man to a javelin thrower, saying that a pithy
First he suggests that, when someone asks advice of a group, to remain silent
until all others in the group have either declined to speak or offer their advice. If
someone has given good advice, offer approval. Only if no one else has been able
53
offer his opinion. For his second exercise in 512AB, Plutarch advises (shifting to
first person plural) that we all should be especially on our guard against
both the person being asked because it suggests that he is ignorant, and the
person asking because it suggests that he is too foolish to know that the man he
someone respect by allowing him to finish his answer is more important than
correcting the mistake. Interruptions, even if the interrupter is correct, are always
unwelcome. Furthermore, this behavior will make others all too keen to correct
the interrupter should he make a mistake himself (512C). This advice at first
However as Plutarch points out at 512B, many of the dialogues of Plato, such as
Socrates and his interlocutors. For Plutarch, etiquette is essential for good
questions in a way that is not overly loquacious. When one seeks to remedy a
reticence. One should never answer a question too quickly, but take time to
consider the nature of the question and formulate an appropriate answer. This
sort of response shows the questioner that the answerer takes his question
seriously and does not consider it just an opportunity to talk at length. This
people who pose questions to a babbler only so that they can laugh at his
Another method Plutarch offers for avoiding talking too much is to avoid
encouraging people to avoid eating foods that tempt one to eat when not hungry
and drinks that tempt one to drink when not thirsty (513D). These topics will
vary depending on the person: a talkative military man will not cease telling war
stories, a talkative lawyer always retells his victories in court, a talkative lover
78Plutarch gives examples of each answer to the question, "Is Socrates at home?" Although he
praises the laconic in earlier sections of this treatise, here Plutarch regards the bare negative, like
the letter containing only a large that the Spartans sent to Philip of Macedon when he asked
to be received in Sparta, as less than polite (513A). The superfluous answer, which goes on for
more than a whole Stephanus page, begins with the saying that Socrates is at the
bank, and by the end he has "recited at length the whole eighth book of Thucydides" (
, (513BC).
55
tediously praises his beloved, a well-read talkative man will tell too many stories,
suggests trying to confine one's talk to learned matters, which is, according to
Plutarch, less unpleasant than babbling about trivial things. He also suggests that
writing is an outlet for talkative people that does not bother anyone. He
recommends spending time with superiors and elders, because one is more likely
questions one should ask himself before speaking: What is so important about
what I am about to say? What is the aim? What good will come of saying it or
what bad of not saying it?79 If one cannot answer those questions adequately, it is
; ;
79
; 514E.
56
4 DE CURIOSITATE
particularly concerned philosophers and historians.80 The Greek word has posed
usually referred to by its Latin title De curiositate. The English curiosity, which
though curiositas, with curiosus for , is the usual translation. Leigh devotes a whole
chapter (5490) to this difficulty.
82 Ehrenberg opens his seminal study by noting that there is no in ancient Greek,
politics.
83 Ancient authors are not in agreement on the semantic difference between the various terms.
Some attempt to draw distinctions while others treat them as simple synonyms. See Leigh 58 for
a discussion of usage in various authors.
84 Ehrenberg sees all portrayals of in Aristophanes and Euripides as negative,
repeatedly contrasts the life of the man active in politics and the law courts with
Socrates summarizes the slanders against him that he says have existed since the
his own lack of political engagement Mem. 3.11.16). A resolution may be found
,
,
he does not come before the assembly, a behavior that would traditionally be
largely this strange mixture in the man that caused suspicion and hatred among
the soul in Republic IV. Having established that having and doing what is ones
own as justice,88 Socrates calls an artisans attempt to enter the class of soldiers, or
87 Leigh (3335) observes that the apparent of Socrates was also a concern for
Epictetus. In Diss. 3.1.22, his hypothetical interlocutor says to Socrates, ,
, ; ; Epictetus claims, however, that the
Cynic cares for all humanity as he would his own soul, thus making the souls of others as much
his affair as his own soul (, ,
, , .
; ,
3.22.8182), so that when the Cynic examines and berates
others he is not meddling in anothers business, but taking care of his own as a philosopher (
, , 3.22.97).
88 [Socrates]
. [Glaucon] (433e444a).
60
interchange of the three classes for one another is the greatest harm to the state
Order and History, Eric Voegelin identifies pairs of concepts at work in Platos
Republic that point the way by casting their light on both good and evil and
the poets back to Hesiod, who experienced truth in their resistance to the
resistance to sophistry, the destroyer of the philosophers work (117). The first of
and injustice are in the soul, for Plato, what health and disease are in the body
(444c). Order among the parts of the body constitutes health and disorder
constitutes disease, just as order among the parts of the soul constitutes justice
and disorder injustice.89 Voegelin claims that Plato develops this concept of
covers the various violations of the principle [of order], such as the
attempts to practice more than the one craft for which a man is specifically
89
,
... , ,
,
; (444d)
61
gifted, as well as the desire of the unskilled to rule the polis to its
detriment. When applied to the soul it refers to the inclinations of
appetites and desires to direct the course of human action and to claim
rulership of the soul, which properly belongs to wisdom. Dikaiosyne, on
the other hand, covers right order on all levels in opposition to
polypragmosyne (118).
Thus, for Plato , doing what one is not suited to do, goes far
beyond an irksome quality and indicates injustice, both in the individual soul
curiosity about the affairs of others and a desire for gossip, which seems at first
glance to be, as Nikolaidis calls it, a minor foible (206). However, in light of the
curiositate, while perhaps outwardly minor foibles, must have been for Plutarch
evidence of a graver problem in the soul, and one worthy of the therapy of
Plutarch makes use of his readers curiosity in the opening paragraphs of the
treatise. Plutarch opens with a vague metaphor about the ill effects of an
unventilated house on its occupants and the salutary effects of opening it up for
more light and ventilation (515B), which he eventually compares with the layout
of his hometown (without naming the town, 515C), and finally with states of
mind (515CD). As van Hoof observes, the reader at this point is twenty lines
into De cur. without any mention of the actual topic. She suggests that Plutarch
62
is, ironically, arousing the curiosity of his readers (177). Once he does indicate
... ,
disease seeming to free from neither envy nor malice 515D). Again, Plutarch
remedy for the vicious behavior, Plutarch gives a preview of what the
will involve:
,
...90
.
Change your curiosity from without and turn it inwards; if you enjoy
pursuing inquiry into misfortunes, you have much to keep you busy at
homeyou will find so great an abundance of faults in your life and
diseases in your soul and oversights in your duties (515DE).
Plutarch restates this central message in various forms throughout the treatise; he
believes that curiosity about the faults, misfortunes, and business of others is a
90 Plutarch here quotes a verse of unknown origin. Helmbold believes the text is corrupt (475 n. c).
63
diatribe. Again Plutarch assumes that the hypothetical addressee has some sort
inward rather than to seek out the faults and problems of others is that
to distract attention from them. In this respect Plutarch follows what Epictetus
says in Diss. 3.22.97, where he likens examining ones own business to a general
inspecting his troops, and contrasts this with being a busybody.91 In addition to
one would with tools) arising from various vices to Xenophons injunction to
keep separate places in the household for various tools,92 Plutarch addresses the
continues:
91
, , .
92 Oec. 8.1920. Plutarch evidently wants to compartmentalize faults by the vices as one might
organize ones tools according to their use. This is far from his best use of literary allusion.
64
clearly indicate the influence of the diatribe, as the call to turn ones
attention inward in the previous pages. Plutarch restates this idea with a
,
,
;93 ; ;
Where have I turned? And what have I done? What necessity have
I left undone? (515F)
Like the Lamia who stores her eyes in a jar when at home and puts them in their
sockets when she ventures out, each person when dealing with others puts
himself, because he points out for them those things they need to correct,94 but
93 Carm. Aur. 42. Plutarch also quotes this line in De superst. 161B, but with ; (how
have I offended) in place of ;
94 This is, of course, one of the ways Plutarch says one can profit from ones enemies in De
capienda ex inamicis utilitate. Enemies can point out faults or shortcomings that one is too proud to
65
pries into in 516BC, Plutarch shifts from direct address to the first person plural:
, ,
.
, ,
.
who went about considering Pythagoras and his arguments, and Aristippus,
who, having heard of Socrates arguments from others, was so insatiable to hear
them from the man himself that he became physically ill and eventually had to
move from Olympia to Athens (516C). After reiterating his idea that a
not have to examine his own, Plutarch adds an additional nuance to his
food to scratch in a corner for a single grain,95 a busybody passes over topics in
notice and friends are too polite to mention. Noticing faults in enemies provides one with the
opportunity to ask if one has those faults as well. In both De cur. and De cap. ut., Plutarch
emphasizes that whatever benefit one might gain from seeking out and exposing the faults of
ones enemies is cancelled out by the harm done by making ones self a .
Furthermore, one gains more benefit and does more harm to enemies by improving ones self
instead. Cf. 87BC and 88EF.
95 Plutarch quotes an unattributed verse.
66
plain view to search out troubles that are hidden. Plutarch then makes a jarring
inquire into what has been hidden? If it were not bad, it would not be hidden
516E).
(517DE). For those who cannot bear to inquire into topics without misfortunes
or bad behavior, Plutarch suggests studying history, where one can find an
abundance of evil behavior to look into without causing trouble or pain for ones
acquaintances (517EF).
with being a busybody, namely the desires to hear about only misfortunes and to
uncover what is hidden. For this reason, Plutarch says, everyone is reticent and
on his guard around a busybody and puts off any important business until a
busybody is not present. For these same reasons, no one puts any trust in a
...
67
(entrust our letters and papers and seals to slaves and strangers
one should remind him of all the things he has previously learned though his
and empty and joyless things 520A), perhaps this examination would disgust
him enough to deter his . At 520D, Plutarch says that the most
diatribe, Plutarch introduces his first example of this kind of training: avoiding
reading inscriptions on tombs and other writing on walls. There might not seem
to be harm in this, but Plutarch argues that reading every bit of writing one
comes across reinforces the practice of seeking out other peoples business.
Plutarch likens this practice to how hunters train young hounds not to follow
68
devotes much of the later sections of De cur. to control of the senses. Plutarch
(You
may observe busybodies led around, necks twisted, by every sight equally,
whenever they develop the habit and practice of casting about glances
the senses not roam about outside like some ill-trained servant girl, but,
when dispatched by the soul, come upon its business and announce its
message quickly to it; then to return in an orderly fashion within reason
and devoted to it.
521CD).
69
Those who make the most use of the intellect are those who make least
use of the senses. Helmbold suggests that Plutarch has Phaed. 66a in mind.96
himself in order to prevent his senses from distracting his intellect, but makes a
complete rejection of the senses for pure intellect, but the subordination of the
senses to reason, much like the subordination of the emotions to reason that he
avoiding falling prey to curiosity: avoid fights in the marketplace and do not run
to see something when a crowd does. If you (Plutarch switches to second person)
are lacking in self-control, walk away from these spectacles. The preceding
521E). One can gain no benefit from consorting with busybodies by running to
gawk at public spectacles, whereas one can benefit his soul by avoiding them.
dancers or comedians (521EF). Van Hoof (205) suggests that Plutarch is not
telling his readers to never attend popular entertainments; as she points out, in
none of his works does Plutarch suggest shunning social activities. Rather, he
wants his readers not to let entertainment draw them away from more important
business: that is, to give in to curiosity. He illustrates his point with historical
Plutarch, encouraged people to avoid food and drink that would tempt them to
eat and drink when not hungry or thirsty. In the same way, one ought to avoid
entertainment that would tempt one away from important business. He goes on
to bring up Cyrus the Great and Alexander refusing to see beautiful women
because they knew that they would be tempted to see these women again and
keeping aloof from ones own wife in order not to be stirred by another woman.
He also suggests putting off hearing a report about events in the household
(522B), or putting off opening and reading letters for some time after receiving
them, or discouraging friends from sharing gossip (522D). In between the advice
suggesting that his curiosity is the cause of his tragedy. Invoking Oedipus shows
71
how Plutarch believes that curiosity about one's self or one's own affairs (e.g.
receiving a report about the activities in the household) is the most pernicious
damage. Van Hoof suggests that Plutarch has structured this section of ,
progressively more difficult training (200, 202, 205). It is important to get control
satisfied with what it has, but only what it can get hold of next. Curiosity
nourished by looking into permissible topics and things will soon desire
lectures in Rome, received a letter from the emperor. Plutarch says that he
72
paused so Rusticus could read the letter, but Rusticus refused and did not read it
until after the lecture was finished (522E). Van Hoof suggests that this anecdote
is included as part of a clever strategy for self-promotion. Beyond the fact that
argues that this story of Rusticus is meant to recall the story about Aristippus.
Rusticus to Plutarch. This comparison with Socrates also establishes that Plutarch
himself is not guilty of the vices he diagnoses in De cur. Socrates often appears to
Socrates, Plutarch anticipates and indirectly answers the charge that he too is a
busybody.
). They are, therefore, the most curious of all, and this makes
made a journey to Sicily, the elder Dionysius compelled him to come to his court.
When Plato spoke against tyranny, Dionysius took him prisoner and arranged to
73
have him sold into slavery (3.1819).97 After he was ransomed and returned to
promised land and settlers so that Plato could establish his Republic. Dionysius
then reneged and Plato had to flee, fearing for his safety (3.22). Plutarchs
mention of the Dionysii, along with the remark that tyrants are the most detested
people of all, alludes not only to Platos ordeals with Dionysii, but also to Platos
view on tyranny from Republic VIII and IX, where Socrates and the interlocutors
(the most wretched of all cities 578b), and the tyrannical man
a serious problem for both Plato and Plutarch; it is injustice in the city and
disease in the soul. So while Plutarch opened De cur. playfully, enticing his
,
.
97 On the Dionysius the Elder and in his use of informants see also Arist. Pol. 5 1313b.
74
advising against borrowing money. The target audience for this advice is not the
poor, but those who want to borrow in order to live even more luxuriously, as
van Hoof observes (26), or those who are at least wealthy enough to have a good
not group De vit. ae. with the other practical ethical treatises. Initially, he
similarly excludes De vit. ae. from his discussion of Plutarch's minor ethics
(which includes De garr., De cur., and De vit. pud.) because he thinks that the
vice as disease model that he observes in the three other treatises is not present
actual moral failing (206). However, as has been shown in the analysis of De
virt. mor., Plutarch, whose ethics are heavily influenced by Aristotle, regarded
ae. from other ethical works. Van Hoof, although she does not devote a chapter to
98Early in the treatise Plutarch notes the paradox that loans are not given to those who are in
need. Only those who have enough property are given credit (827F).
75
De vit. ae., does consider it a work of practical ethics (26). As will be shown,
Ingenkamp and Nikolaidas' other reservations about grouping De vit. ae. with
Plutarch begins the treatise by referring to Platos Laws (844b), where Plato
says that those who cannot find a source of water on their own land can receive
water from another, but only after they have dug on their own land down to the
layer of potters clay. Similarly, argues Plutarch, there ought to be laws against
borrowing for those who have not exhausted their own property (827EF).99 He
;
, ,
Why do you wait upon the banker or broker? Borrow from your own
table;100 you have silver drinking cups, dishes and plates; pawn these for
your need (828A).
By borrowing money, the free man makes himself like a slave. In 828B, Plutarch
99 Ingenkamp refers to this sort of introduction, with a comparison or anecdote that does not
exactly apply to the actual topic, but rather serves as an attention grabber, as a Sprungbrett
(springboard) (2011, 22324).
100 Plutarch plays on the double meaning of (table or bank).
76
gold ornaments of the statue of Athena in the Parthenon designed so that they
could be removed to pay for emergency expenses (cf. Thuc. 2.13). Plutarch
continues to develop the metaphor of the lender as military invader and debt as
preserve freedom, which he contrasts with the ways that borrowers enslave
Apollo; Carthaginian women gave their hair to make catapult ropes (828C). The
sanctuary anywhere. Plutarch then tells how the Athenians, heeding the
prophecy of the Delphic oracle, abandoned all their possessions and trusted in
preserve their freedom (cf. Hdt. 7.141). As Russell (1973b, 165) observes, Plutarch
his example of frugality in the next clause, and the association of the wooden
table with the wooden walls continues the city defense metaphor (828D). At
828E, Plutarch again associates the moneylender with the invading Persians,
77
, , ,
, ,
, ,
, .
If you will not pay him, he troubles you; if you have the money, he will
not take it. If you sell, he drives down the price; if you will not sell, he
forces you to. If you go to court, he intercedes;101 if you swear an oath, he
commands it.102 If you go to his door, he shuts you out; if you stay home,
he beats down your door (829EF).
Plutarch goes on to ask what good Solon did in eliminating debt slavery,
because those who have taken on debts are effectively slaves. In becoming slaves
money lenders are like the fiery avengers that Plato describes in Hades (828F
829A, cf. Resp. X, 615d616a). Plutarch returns to his Persian invasion metaphor,
saying that Darius sent Datis and Artaphernes against Athens with chains and
fetters, but moneylenders work against all of Greece with signatures and notes as
their fetters (828A). When debtors are unable to pay interest, moneylenders take
their collateral, but do not even gain any enjoyment or profit from it: they do not
cultivate the fields they confiscate or live in the houses they foreclose on (829D
bankers, but rather to emphasize how much disgrace there is in taking on debt
(829EF).
do not need. Have you no money? Then do not borrow, for you will not pay it
off.). In the case of the person who has no money, Plutarch advises that since
poverty holds so many misfortunes, the poor person should not deprive himself
of the one advantage he has over the rich: the freedom from worry over
borrowing and repaying. Not even the rich can easily bear the burden of debt, so
the poor man should seek out any work that he can. He lists various jobs
sailor or boatman), and reminds the poor man that none of these is more
disgraceful than being told to pay up by a lender (830AB). Russell identifies this
borrowing.
lender, finding fault with Musonius Rufus for borrowing. When Rutilius remarks
that Zeus the Savior, whom Musonius as a Stoic would claim to emulate, is no
no need, according to Plutarch, to invoke Zeus the Savior when more ready
examples will suffice. Simple creatures lacking hands, reason, and skills thrive
without having to borrow anything. Human beings with their superior intellect
can support all kinds of animals in addition to themselves. Why, Plutarch asks
his reader, do you think less of yourself than simple creatures, presuming that
you cannot obtain what you need by your skills and intellect, and must resort to
borrowing? (830C). Plutarch then reminds his readers about Cleanthes the Stoic,
philosophical.103 Plutarch marvels that the same hand that worked the mill wrote
about the gods and cosmos, but that so many people think such labor is slavish,
yet will make themselves slaves to lenders. These people do this not out of
Plutarch next remarks that if people were satisfied with the necessities of
, (830DE).
perfumers, and dyers. The well-to-do incur debt not for food and drink, but for
luxuries, and for putting on unrestrained displays for the city, contending in
being a debtor so ruinous is that once a man borrows the first time, he often
remains a debtor his whole life, like a horse that, once broken, is never free, but
just exchanges one rider for another (830EF). In a similar fashion, debtors move
from one creditor to another, often taking out new loans to pay off old ones
(831AB). Plutarch then compares chronic debtors to people sick with cholera,
who refuse treatment, vomit up prescribed medicine, and thus become sicker. In
the same way, debtors cough up an interest payment104 while more interest
accrues, giving them more nausea and headaches (831B). Although Plutarch does
makes in this passage show that the vice-as-disease metaphor is, contrary to
( ). He
property rather than become the property of another. Plutarch also reminds his
wealthier readers that when they put up their property as collateral on a loan, it
is no longer really their property. He imagines that such a reader might protest
that his father left him that property. Plutarch retorts that his father also left him
storm, tearing off the garment given to him by Calypso because it was weighing
him down and keeping him from swimming (831E),105 and then compares the
philosophy, such as Crates the Theban, or Anaxagoras, but then states that is not
necessary to give up on property entirely. Rather one can be like Philoxenus the
lyric poet who gave up an allotment of land on Sicily because he thought that the
lifestyle there was too luxurious and settled for a simpler life elsewhere (831F
832A). Plutarch closes De vit. ae. by returning to Platos Laws, but less overtly.
, , ,
,
,
endure, as Phineus, feeding winged Harpies, which carry off and plunder
their food, buying their grain, not at the right time, but before it is
harvested, and buying the oil before they pick the olives.
As Russell (1973b) notes, the Harpies were commonly used as a metaphor, but
Plutarchs use of Harpies as a metaphor for creditors is unique (170). In the final
sentence, Plutarch continues the idea of creditors taking crops before the harvest:
, ,
105Russell calls this moralizing of Od. V ingenious, but says that it does not play fair with the
story: the after all was a divine gift (1973b, 170).
83
In Leg. 844de, Plato forbids the harvest of grapes (or figs) before the correct
time, which he says coincides with the rising of Arcturus.106 Russell (1973b)
seems likely that the link between the opening and closing sentences is
deliberate.
De vitando aere alieno has the most in common with a Stoic/Cynic diatribe
of all of Plutarchs practical ethical works. He makes use of direct address to the
and relies on anecdotes and exempla to illustrate his points. There are also many
examples of parallelism (e.g. 829EF) and antithesis (830C). There are even
and Crates in 831F. The repeated likening of debt to slavery also suggests
Stoic parallels and allusions, the content of the treatise is still fundamentally
is the first word in De vit. ae., and Plutarch alludes to the Platonic quotation from
the first sentence in the last. He also refers to the Republic at 829A.
state, because he believes lending with interest encourages the shameless pursuit
of money and all the evils associated with this pursuit. In Leg. XI 921cd, the
Athenian Stranger asserts that loans should be barren; that is, they should
nature. As he does at the end of De cur. (522F) and in De superst. (166D), Plutarch
with tyrants; the association of vicious behavior with tyranny also occurs at 828E,
emphasizes that the free man makes himself like a slave by taking on debt.
Plato, and is evidence of injustice and disease, both in the soul and the city.
double meaning of the Greek , which means both offspring and interest. Aristotle
explains the double meaning in Pol. 1258b.
85
6 DE VITIOSO PUDORE
a good nature. His analogy is that certain plants, though useless themselves, are
evidence to a farmer that the soil they grow in is rich and fertile (528D).
Flatterers, as Plutarch says in 529D, are apt to praise because they are
Despite the fact that it often is praised, Plutarch states clearly that
praiseworthy about it.109 Like many of the other vicious behaviors Plutarch tries
people from giving good advice, and compels them to say and do things that go
against their will (530A). It causes people to lend money to the untrustworthy
historical examples of lives lost due to it. Two of Alexander the Great's
enemies.111
109 ,
, (529E).
110 As observed by Nikoladis (2011), he refers to it as a disease or affection seven times in De vit.
pud. (207).
111 Antipater was killed by Demetrius, and Heracles by Polypechon (530CD). On Antipater, cf.
and easiest exercises first. He shifts to second person address at this point. The
first examples include refusing to drink when you have had your fill, even if
another is trying to toast you, and refusing to allow another to taunt you into
participating in an activity you do not want to participate in, such as a dice game
over drinks (530F). Another example is, if you should be seized upon by an
, to cut him off and not let him delay you from going about your
business (530F531A). Plutarch reminds his readers that such refusals will lead to
able to refuse when the stakes are higher (531A). He illustrates this with a
rhetorical question:
,
,
,
, , ,
;
For what will you do in great affairs, put to shame in the presence of a
king or public assembly, if you are unable to reject a drinking cup offered
by an acquaintance or to escape the clutches of a babbler, but allow him to
trample you with silly talk, because you are unable to say, I will see you
another time, now I am busy? (531AB).
112
(530E).
88
silent (531B). How will you, asks Plutarch, be able to advise or correct a man who
errs in his personal or public life if you cannot refrain from flattering him for a
and giving gifts. Many people give money or gifts not to deserving people,
kinsmen, or those in need, but instead to those who are the most persistent in
which include rejecting experts. Examples of this include refusing to call a doctor
rather than the best-qualified teacher, or letting a friends son, rather than an
experienced lawyer, try a case out of obligation to the friend. Not even those who
there are many Epicureans and Stoics (not Platonists, of course) who join those
schools not from choice or judgment, but because of pressure from friends and
relations. For these situations, Plutarch again suggests practicing when there is
less at stake. If one can refuse to patronize a bad barber, fuller, or inn even
89
though the barber, fuller, or innkeeper has greeted him before in public, then it
will be easier to refuse the bad doctor, teacher, or philosopher, even when
pressured to do so (532C).
leads to the very suffering one is trying to avoid. Just as the superstitious man
rituals to try to appease gods, the excessively modest man will often, in his
Someone who grants requests to unreasonable and bad petitioners often will be
rightly criticized by good men. One who repeatedly loans money seeking to
avoid the embarrassment of refusing his friends will very often have to endure
the greater shame of being in need of money himself. Avoiding the private
will lead to public embarrassment when the suit is laughed out of court (532D
E).
113As Nikoladis (2011) observes, though Plutarchs practical ethical treatises generally fall into a
three-part structuredefinition of the vicious behavior, examples of how the vicious behavior
harms the individual, and steps for fixing the vicious behaviorthat structure is never clearly
demarcated, and that Plutarch, for rhetorical effect, will move freely between the three elements
throughout the treatises (209).
90
advice. He reminds readers who struggle to say no that they can refuse requests
even in silence with the appropriate facial expression (532F). He also suggests
rehearsing stock replies and clever ways of saying no, suggesting that an
eloquent or witty reply can soften the blow of a refusal.114 , more than
any other sickness of the soul, causes regret even before any action. Those
power, and he experiences even greater disgrace when his inability to deliver is
readers that it is good to give reasonable and proper services to those who need
them, but by choice rather than compulsion. He also reminds readers that those
who seek to take advantage of anothers are being unjust and unfair.
He then quotes Zeno of Citium, who asks a young man avoiding an acquaintance
who asked the young man for false testimony on his behalf why he would not
Plutarch uses examples from Thucydides (2.40), Euripides (Nauck frag, 595), Hesiod (Op. 371),
114
an unknown tragic fragment (Nauck ad. 389), and his own Life of Phocion (30.3) (533 AB).
91
stand up to a man who shows him no respect.115 Plutarch uses this quotation to
emphasize that no one does anyone any benefit by acting unjustly, even if the
person asking for the unjust action would make it seem so.
that even those with power and prominence will try to exploit the of
others for unjust or unreasonable requests. To help readers cope with such
the unjust requests of powerful men. In each of the examples that he gives, the
man refusing the unjust request turns the notion of shame on the requester
lobbies you (Plutarch returns to second person) for an unjust consideration when
115 ; ,
; (534A = Von Arnim SVF i. 313).
116 The younger Cato, when serving as quaestor, was pressured by Catulus the censor to overlook
a fine. Cato told Catulus how unseemly it would be for the censor to have to remove himself
from office (cf. Life of Cato the Younger 16). Agesilas, king of Sparta, refused his fathers request
to render an illegal verdict, saying that since it was his father who taught him from childhood to
obey the laws, that he was in fact obeying by refusing (similar incidents are related in Plutarchs
Life of Agesilas). Themistocles refused an illegal request by the poet Simonides, saying that just as
Simonides would be a bad poet if he ignored the rules of music, he would be a bad magistrate if
he ignored the laws (cf. Life of Themistocles 5).
92
dance his way through the marketplace. When the requestors refuse to do so,
then ask what is really the worse offence: inelegant speech and dancing, or illegal
censure when dealing with others. Inevitably everyone will offend someone. It is
better, therefore, to offend the unjust and inconsiderate than the wise and just.
He closes the treatise with the admonition that his readers never forget the
trouble that has caused them in the past. Readers will find that the
reverence for the gods in the case of superstition, desire to avoid censure in the
other practical ethical treatises, Plutarch offers many examples of the harm and
shame that are caused by the vicious behavior, and many exercises for putting
reason back in control. There is much evidence for the influence of Stoic/Cynic
diatribe in this treatise, as the frequent use of direct address to the reader shows.
Plutarch also relies heavily on rhetorical questions to make his points, and
anecdotes and exempla to illustrate the harm that excessive modesty causes. He
93
also uses parallelism (e.g. 533E) and antithesis (e.g. 532C). However, while the
Aristotelian. Furthermore, the idea that leads reason astray, and that
fixing involves beginning with easier exercises and moving to more difficult
117 Which Plutarch saw, as argued in the chapter on De virt. mor., as fundamentally the same
tradition.
118 Even though, as commentators such as Dillon (1983), Helmbold, and Babut have argued,
Plutarchs understanding of Stoic ethics, especially regarding progress toward virtue, was
flawed.
94
7 DE SUPERSTITIONE
derivative superstition) does not reflect the exact meaning of the vice Plutarch
positive trait,120 and Aristotle uses it to describe how a clever tyrant simulates the
religious piety of a good king.121 Theophrastus Character 16, with its comic
resorts to magic and ritual to repair a sack with a hole in it, marked a shift in the
119 61. Mollering does note, however, that superstitio and are used as roughly
equivalent pejorative terms for an opponents beliefs in pagan and early Christian religious
polemics (5360).
120 In the first, Xenophon describes Agesilaus as ,
, (Ages.
11.8). In the second, he describes pious soldiers joining Cyrus in a paean as they ready for battle,
because (Cyr. 3.3.58).
121 Men less afraid, says Aristotle, of suffering misfortunes at the hand of a ruler
negative term; its connotation usually depended on the theological views of the
that held the Republic together, because religious fear kept the
figure, but a sick and wretched person in need of philosophical therapy. Plutarch
opens by noting the vicious extremes caused by ignorance concerning the gods:
atheism on the one hand, and superstition on the other. Atheism is found in
122
(Origen, C. Cels. I.13 = Usener fg. 369).
123 Stobaeus Ecl. II.92 = SVF 408.
96
and fear is unique among emotions in that it is not only irrational, but engenders
most helpless and hopeless, because whereas other objects of fear can be
avoided, the superstitious man can never escape his because gods are found
everywhere:
,
,
,
(165DE).
He does not fear the sea he who does not sail, nor war he who does not
fight, nor pirates he who stays at home, nor informers he who is poor, nor
jealousy he who is a private citizen, nor earthquakes he who lives in Gaul,
nor lightning he who lives in Ethiopia; but he who fears gods fears all
things, earth, sea, air, sky, darkness, light, sound, silence, dreams.
97
slaves and prisoners can forget their condition in sleep and there is even relief
from great pain in sleep; the dreams of the superstitious, however, are filled with
the superstitious to engage in bizarre magic rituals such as smearing with mud,
, , )124.
dreaming, his fear is ever awake, and there is neither escape nor removal 166C).
behavior, but also observes that one can escape tyrants by fleeing the lands they
rule. This is not true of the superstitious man, because he treats the gods as if
considered one of the Seven Sages was also the first tyrant (Diog. Laert. 1.7).
98
they were tyrants, and there is no place a man can flee the gods, a point that he
illustrates with a series of rhetorical questions that end with a switch to second
person:
, ,
; ,
, ;
He who fears the rule of the gods as if it were a sullen and inexorable
tyranny, where would he remove himself, where would he flee? What
god-forsaken land would he find, what sea? What part of the universe will
you sink into and hide yourself, wretched man, believing that you have
escaped god? (166D)
that sanctuaries, temples, and statues of gods are refuges for most men, even for
robbers and outlaws, but that they are the most fearful things for the
superstitious man. The superstitious man shuns that which ought to comfort
current psychiatry:
fearful, unknowingly throws itself into every sort of dread). Plutarch then
99
remarks that Tiresias was unfortunate not to be able to see his children, but the
madness killed their children because they believed them to be something other
Beginning at 168A, Plutarch contrasts the reactions of the atheist and the
temperament will accept misfortune and try to find help or comfort for himself.
disorder of the world. The superstitious man, however, will declare himself
hated by the gods at the slightest setback and will complain not at fortune, but
lay the blame on the gods (168B). The atheist, when ill, will consider his diet and
publicly or has offended a ruler, he will consider in what way he might have
erred in his conduct. The superstitious man, however, considers every illness,
loss of property, or failure in public life to be punishment sent from the gods.
Because of this belief, he rejects doctors, philosophers, or any other experts who
could aid him with illness, grief, or misfortune (168C). Rather than acknowledge
his ability to better his own situation, he turns to superstitious rite and rituals,
100
putting himself in the hands of silly old women who administer such rituals. 126
desperately against misfortunes, but the superstitious give up when faced with
myth and history of people ruined by their superstitions. These include Midas,
portents in his dreams; Aristodemus, the king of the Messenians, who, disturbed
by signs on the eve of a battle with Sparta, lost heart and committed suicide
rather than go into battle; and Nicias, the Athenian general, whose fear and
Expedition.127 He also notes that the Jews were captured by their enemy when
they took no action to prevent the attack because it was the Sabbath.128
According to Plutarch, the most enjoyable things are feast days, religious
mysteries, and adoration of the gods. Obviously, the atheist cannot enjoy these
pleasures, but he does not suffer from missing them. They are worse for the
126 Plutarch quotes Bion, the founder of the diatribe, in his description of the old women and their
rituals (168E).
127 Nicias put aside all military matters and spent several days sacrificing and divining to
determine the portent of the lunar eclipse, which gave the forces of Syracuse time to surround
and lay siege to his camp. See Plutarchs Nicias 2334.
128 It is not clear what battle Plutarch refers to here. Babbit suggests that it is either the capture of
Jerusalem by Pompey in 63 BCE or the capture of Jerusalem by Antony in 38 BCE (481 n. f).
101
him is filled with fear (169DF). Plutarch then wonders why atheists are called
impious, but superstitious people are not. Directly addressing the reader again
( ;), he asks why the reader would think this is so. He would rather
have people say that there is no Plutarch than say that Plutarch is an inconstant,
fickle man, given to anger, vengeful over accidents and vexed at trifles.129 He
then quotes some examples of things that have been written about the gods that
he believes are superstitious and impious, including poems about Artemis being
manic and eager for vengeance (170BC), Leto desiring the death of Niobes
children (170C), and Hecuba desiring to eat a liver (170D). The superstitious may
continue to worship and sacrifice to the gods, but saying these terrible things
about the gods is evidence that they hate and fear the gods. Plutarch compares
this behavior to people who welcome, praise, and give statues to tyrants, but
hate them in their hearts, again associating vicious behavior with tyranny (170E
F).
129He goes on: if you should invite others to dinner, or leave him out, or do not have the time
and do not go to see him or call on him when out, he will bite your body and cling on, or seize
your little child and murder him, or he will send the beast he has into your crops and ruin your
harvest ( , ,
, ,
,
,
170A). This kind of exaggeration for rhetorical effect and ironic tone is not
unexpected in a diatribe.
102
behavior of the superstitious gives atheists arguments (that are not without
merit, Plutarch remarks) that religion is bad and harmful (171A). Atheists see the
behavior of superstitious people and think not only that there are not gods, but
that it is better that there are not gods (171B). In fact, Plutarch thinks that it
would better for the Gauls, Scythians, and Carthaginians to have no conception
of the divine at all than for them to believe that their gods demand human
sacrifice (171C). The treatise ends abruptly, with a short admonition not to rush
harm and shame that come from vicious behavior, than with , giving
exercises to remedy the vicious behavior. Plutarchs empasis on pointing out the
harmfulness of superstition may also suggest that De sup. was intended for a
broader audience than other ethical treatises. The elements of diatribe, such as
informal language and direct, second person address, use of anecdotes and
exempla to show the harm caused by superstition, and rhetorical figures like
Plutarch was trying to provoke a reaction in his audience moreso than in other
works, so rhetorical effect was more important than particular advice. The
103
possibility that De superst. was intendend for a broader audience may also
account for the lack of allegory in De superst. Moellering notes that Plutarch
never resorts to allegory to account for stories about the gods that give rise to
Egyptian deities (96106). Moellering contends that allegory does not fit the tone
of sober rationalism Plutarch strives for in De sup (105). Perhaps Plutarch thought
the tendency towards mysticism in a work like De Is. et Os. was inapproprite for
Despite his brief warning against the other extreme, his surprisingly
atheism to superstition could be a tactic to distance his beliefs and practices from
those of the truly superstitious. Plutarch elsewhere shows awareness that he may
be accused of having the very vices he attacks, as van Hoofs analysis of De cur.
shows (see chapter 4 above). Plutarchs suprising preference for atheism over
104
superstition may also suggest that part of the treatment for superstition is to use
some of the atheists skepticism. As was shown in the chapter on De virt. mor.,
Plutarch considered skepticism a tool for arriving at the truth. While none of the
assumptions (as Plutarch does here by repeatedly bringing up the atheist) was a
tactic used by the Academic skeptics.130 In this case, the repeated reminders that
there are other views of the gods is an element of . Also, again despite
his warning at the end of the treatise, Plutarch does in other treatises (cf. De garr.
vicious behavior. In this case, it may be necessary for the superstitious man to
subject his views of religion to the atheists doubt in order to arrive at a better
130 Cic. Acad. II. 60 and Tusc. IV.5 and Long (9294).
105
8 CONCLUSION
classify the works of Plutarch that fall under the broad category Moralia. Several
on specific ethical topics aimed at educated elites who are not professional
Nikolaidis and van Hoof have used the terms minor ethics and practical
ethics, respectively. Each of these scholars groups most, but not all, of Plutarchs
treatises considered in this dissertation into their chosen category. Van Hoof, for
example, does not consider De virt. mor. a practical ethical work (259), while
Nikolaidis and Ingenkamp exclude De vit. ae. from their respective categories
(see above). I have chosen to consider these six works together because they
model of moral virtue (as described in De virt. mor.); second, they all show the
from the titles of Plutarchs extant and attested polemical works131 against the
131These include the extant works (Lamprias catalogue 76, 77, and 79)
(On Stoic Inconsistancies) and (On
Conceptions, against the Stoics). The manuscripts of the latter give the title as
.), and
(That the Stoics talk more paradoxically than the poets), and the non-extant but attested
("3 books on Justice, against Chrysippus," Lamprias 59),
106
Stoics that Plutarch is entirely hostile to the Stoics, his relationship to the Stoics
of Stoic works and doctrines from Zeno up to his own time (1969a, 183270).
Plutarch also, as Hershbell points out, had many Stoics in his circle of friends
(Opsomer 2013, 89 and n. 4), Plutarch often treats Stoic thinkers with respect,
figure and addresses most of his criticism directly to Chrysippus, Plutarch also
and twice in De vit. pud. (531E and 536A). Musonius Rufus appears in De vit. ae.
(830B), as well as De cohibenda irae (453D, cf. Helmbold and O'Neil 52). Dion of
Prusa is not quoted in extant Moralia, but the Lamprias catalogue contains two
dialogue between writer and reader. This conceit is most often established by
shifts of person, from third person to second person or first person plural, and
of these works to varying degrees, and even appear in the more theoretical De
interlocutor to pose questions that Plutarch then answers. Plutarch fills these
treatises with anecdotes and historical exempla, both to give examples of the
harm caused by vicious behavior, and to support the arguments that he makes.
Though it does not appear in De virt. mor., use of medical language and
disease throughout De garr. and addresses the reader directly when giving
direct address when trying to draw attention to the harm and shame that
Sandbach (1969) believes that the Dion in these titles could be Dion of Prusa (27 n. c), and
134
Pernot (2007) makes the case that these works do refer to Dion of Prusa (106107).
108
Plutarch uses direct address most frequently in De vit. ae., and also relies heavily
language is absent in De vit. ae., Plutarch does use illness and cure as a metaphor
for debt and paying off debts. Plutarch turns to direct address at crucial points in
De vit. pud. and De sup. as well. Although the vices of excessive modesty and
diseases. Plutarch writes in many different genres, and diatribe is just one
of philosophy, he uses more text-based arguments (De an. proc., De Is. et Os., Plat.
are the target audience for his dialogues and technical treatises. Diatribe offers a
method of argument that targets the educated man who is not an expert in
philosophy. Plutarch uses diatribe to broaden the audience for his ethics.
Adopting the diatribe from the Stoics also gives Plutarch the ability to try to
better the Stoics at a style that was so closely associated with their school.
practical sides of his philosophy. Though his concept of moral virtue may bear
superficial similarities to that of the Stoics, and his treatises may bear rhetorical
It is clear that he believes that the theory behind ethics matters, even in practical
ethical works. Thus, the process of bringing irrational desires under the control
that subordinate irrational desires to reason, the individual mirrors in his own
soul what the demiurge does on a cosmic level in giving order and rationality to
the World Soul. The process of developing particular virtues also follows the
which involves achieving a mean between excess and deficiency. All of the
drives borrowing.
To restore reason to control of the soul, the individual must first recognize
the harm and shame caused by a vicious behavior, and then practice habits that
help restore reason to control. Thus in the case of talkativeness (), the
talkative man first must recognize that he behaves like a drunkard when he talks
110
too much and that his talkativeness makes others not want to be with him. He
then must practice pausing and thinking before he speaks in order to consider
the purpose and value of what he will say. A must recognize that
his desire to involve himself in others affairs causes him to be unjust and
about his own affairs and not satisfying his curiosity about the affairs of others at
all. Those who borrow money because they desire to display their fine
that these people use their reason to content themselves with what they have and
please others and avoid censure drives the man with excessive shame ()
driven to bizarre and impious behavior by his irrational beliefs about the gods.
The works of practical ethics examined here are, as van Hoof points out,
not technical or particularly rigorous works of philosophy. They are meant for
educated men who are acquainted with philosophy, but have not studied it on
an advanced level (255). Scholars of previous generations have taken the lack of
111
Viewed within the context of all of his philosophical work, however, they show
In other words, the practical ethical treatises, rather than diminish his status as a
philosopher, highlight his skill as an author, because, as this analysis has shown,
his practical ethical treatises are grounded in his technical philosophical works.
Plutarch uses his rhetorical skill and knowledge of diatribe to promote Platonism
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